


A Life Against Happiness

by TiBun



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotionally Hurt Bucky Barnes, Fake Character Death, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Starvation, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Nudity, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Prompt Fic, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tumblr Prompt, Whump, implied/referenced human experiments, past trauma, referenced Stony, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiBun/pseuds/TiBun
Summary: In Bucky's life, Happiness isn't something that sticks around.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	A Life Against Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters, I only explore the possibilities.
> 
> This fic got darker than I intended, I tried to tag warnings properly, but if I forgot one please nicely let me know and I'll add it.
> 
> Prompt from Tumblr:  
> From the prompt list... “How is this possible? I watched you die.” (Winterhawk. Pleeeeaaasssseeeee)

Life hadn’t been kind to Bucky Barnes. 

His childhood had been well enough. His family was close, and his best friend a pain in the ass, always sick, and allergic to everything under the sun while insisting on getting into fights with every bully he came across. Little Stevie Rogers had brightened up his days, even if those days were full of getting Stevie out of trouble and harms way. Though even he couldn’t stop Stevie from going home to his single, overworked, and worried mother with a new black eye or split lip

Life had continued like that through their teenage years and into their early twenties, though family members had been lost, and the idea of dating had been introduced, which was a whole source of uncertainty for Bucky. 

It wasn’t that he disliked the women he took to events, dancing shows, or dinners, but deep down he felt that settling down with one of them just—wasn’t him. His eyes wandered too often towards men, his heart longing to take _them_ out on dates, instead. But that was dangerous. Men were killed for loving other men, and the cops wouldn’t care enough to bring the victim’s memory justice. So he held himself back and continued to only hold women close.

And then war was declared in bold headlines, and Bucky found himself bidding his sister and Stevie goodbye as he was shipped out to experience the horrors of war, the horrors of capture, of torture.

Then Stevie, little passionate Stevie, had stormed in, built like a truck and far from the sickly young man he’d left behind in Brooklyn. It was like all the passion Stevie had inside him had manifested itself on his outside at last, by some sort of magic-science jargon Bucky didn’t put too much thought in. Stevie was there, saving him, and for a while, despite the horrors of war, things were good again. It felt right, standing and fighting next to Stevie, working to end the war so that everyone could go home, so soldiers could stop dying. 

But the good didn’t last, and Bucky found himself falling to what should have been his end. It wasn’t. He was found; stolen away from merciful death so that the torture would continue. He was injected with things, molded body and mind into a weapon, all thoughts and memories that made him _him_ swept away and locked up. Years passing in a confusing haze of cold sleep, blood, violence, and, when too much of _him_ returned to his mind, torture.

Good never lasted. He didn’t trust it, he _couldn’t_.

So when what was _him_ broke free, and he slipped from his handler’s grasp, he was wary of his freedom. Jumpy, paranoid, afraid to let himself truly settle into any happiness he found. Convinced that he was cursed to know pain and only catch glimpses of true happiness. Something that wasn’t meant for him. Something that would be tainted if he dared embrace.

But then there was Clint; a man also broken by life. He stood next to Stevie. Stevie who had also somehow survived through a cold sleep, only to be awoken to warmth and happiness.

Not that the not-so-little-anymore Stevie had found his happiness quickly or easily, but he was surrounded by a team of people who cared for him. A found family of sorts. And Bucky even suspected Stevie to have found romance with one of them.

And hu, that was a bit of a surprise. Stevie’s group seemed to only have one woman in their ranks, and she definitely was not the love interest of Stevie. So, if Bucky was right about Stevie’s happiness, he had also had an interest in men that needed to be hidden back when it was so dangerous. And now he seemed to be free to gravitate towards the short man with dark curly hair and a suit of metal.

But Stevie’s Tony Stark wasn’t the person at his side that made Bucky... _hope_.

Clint Barton. A master archer and spy. Abused by a father, betrayed by a brother, left for dead by a circus troop he’d once called family. And, to Bucky’s surprise, also a victim of mind control.

That had been what connected them. A shared trauma. The kinship born of understanding and pain. Of a lost trust in even one’s self. The suspicion and persecution they both faced by anyone on the outside who _knew_ what they had done under the effects of mind control.

Sure, Stevie and his team as a whole were supportive, but they didn’t truly understand. And, okay, so Natasha had a little more understanding than the rest, but nothing like Clint did.

Bucky’s friendship with Clint grew more quickly than Bucky had thought he was capable of anymore. And eventually, one night as they curled up under blankets on the couch, watching a marathon of a show called _The Munsters_ , they found themselves leaning in close to each other, their eyes locked, and their lips hovering a breath away from touching. Clint seemed to hesitate a second, but Bucky pushed aside the part of his mind that told him to distance himself from happiness, and pressed himself forward to claim the kiss that was hovering between them, tempting them into being something more.

Life had been so good after that, and Bucky had let himself live in the happiness he found with Clint. He enjoyed every date, every touch, every smile shared. They took each step together, at their own pace, until they found themselves with rings on their fingers, vows on their lips, and surrounded by the smiles of the team—their _friends_ who had come to witness and support their union.

But Bucky’s life isn’t kind for long, and even changing his name to Barton didn’t protect him from more hurt—more tragedy.

Being an Avenger was a dangerous job, they all knew that, but somehow Bucky never expected anything serious.

And sure, every single member of the team has had their time in a hospital bed post-mission a fair number of times, but they always pulled through. Always survived and recovered to march straight back out to battle when a new threat was presented.

But seeing Clint laying in a hospital bed had always been the worst of it, until the mission everything changed.

They had been raiding an AIM lab, trying to stop their latest plot before they did harm to innocent people—again, when Tony had flat-out _screamed_ for everyone to retreat over their comm links.

It had been a trap. Designed to lure the Avengers in, to permanently stop their ‘meddling’.

Bucky was one of the last to get out and to the rendezvous point. Stevie, Tony, Natasha, Bruce, Sam, and even Rhodey (who had come just to test out some upgrades Tony had made to his suit) were all waiting.

Clint, however, was not.

Filled with dread, Bucky turned around to march back into the building to find his husband, just in time to see the whole building being reduced to rubble and fire in a searing explosion that singed his eyebrows.

He had screamed into the comms, trying desperately to confirm that Clint had gotten out, that he’d just gone out another exit and was safe on the other side of the smoking ruins where the building used to be.

No reply came. Clint’s end was completely silent.

He had dropped to his knees, staring at the ruins. Nothing was left. Anything organic turned to ash.

Clint was gone.

Clint was gone, and Bucky was alone again. The ring on his finger; a heavy reminder of what he had lost.

But he couldn’t bring himself to remove it.

That had been three years ago, and Bucky was merciless to anyone associated with AIM after that. He let the Winter Soldier seep back into him, take over to hunt down and destroy anyone associated with the organization that had taken his heart, his happiness...his Clint.

Not even Stevie could hold him back or stop him from joining any mission involving AIM

And now...now he stood in the latest AIM labs, destruction behind him, yellow-clad scientists littering the floor, as he found himself frozen in a doorway behind Steve who had burst in after Tony hacked the lock, expecting more members of AIM to draw weapons and fire as soon as they breached the room, and holding his shield at the ready.

But there were no AIM personnel in the small, dimly lit room. No furnisher or comforts of any kind, and the room smelled rank of piss and shit.

Tears stung Bucky’s eyes before rolling down his cheek, his chest tight and restricted as he tried to breathe normally.

And then he stepped forward, pushing a stunned Stevie aside to approach the lone figure huddled up in a corner, naked and skeletal. Dull blond hair shaggy and long, brushing over thin, bony shoulders that lacked the muscle mass that belonged there. Skin was pale and sickly, stretched over rips and joints almost painfully. Hands and feel looking too large for the thin wrists and ankles they were attached to, and bruises from countless injections trailed along each boney arm.

He didn’t look like he should be alive. He looked so far from the man he’d once been, but Bucky knew him in an instant, even with his face tucked down into knobby knees and crossed arms.

Bucky knelt down and reached out with shaking hands, afraid to touch, to hurt, but unable to stop himself from trying to offer comfort. His fingers brushed over the sensitive skin stretched over the man’s shoulder, and the man flinched back from the touch, but he didn’t run, didn’t fight. He feared what the touch meant, but he was too broken, too worn down to do anything about it.

It had been three years.

Bucky choked back a sob and tried again. The man’s ear’s lacked the hearing aids they required, so speaking would do nothing. He had to try touch again.

Soft, gentle, caring… No harm, just comfort.

 _Look up at me, babydoll, look up at me._ He mentally pleaded as he touched him again.

Slowly, Clint did raise his head, weak and shaky like his head was too heavy for his neck to support properly. His eyes were ringed with dark bags, cheeks gaunt, lips purple. One eye was focused and wary, the same blue Bucky remembered, the other paler and discolored, but it did seem to still see. How well it could see, Bucky didn’t know, but the whole picture of what had become of his husband made Bucky’s insides twist.

“Hey…”

Clint’s eyes flickered down to Bucky’s lips, squinting a little as if he was having a harder time reading them. It made Bucky speak even slower than he normally would for Clint to read his lips.

“Hey, it’s okay, Babydoll, you’re safe now. I’ll get you out of here.”

Clint’s eye shed a tear and he finally moved, dropping himself against Bucky with a weak, scratchy sounding “Bucky” and then he let out a shaky, broken sob.

Bucky held him gently but close, squeezing his eyes shut. “God, how is this possible...I watched you die...I’m so sorry, Babydoll, I’m so sorry. If I had known—I should have—Clint.” He shifted him and picked him up bridal-style, inwardly cringing at how light Clint was. He glanced over at Stevie and Tony. He didn’t need to say anything, they knew. Clint needed medical help, and Clint was Bucky’s priority. Stevie and Tony would do the same if it had been one of them locked away by AIM, and they just nodded Bucky past, escorting him safely out of the labs so he wouldn’t have to worry about fighting with Clint in his arms.

Clint was alive, he’d get the help and care he needs, and Bucky would be beside him every step of the way.

They could find happiness together again, and this time Bucky will not let life steal it away from either of them.

* * *

-End-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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